


tell tale signs

by hotmesslewis



Series: Lewis and Clark - Modern [6]
Category: Historical RPF, Lewis and Clark
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Post-Coital Cuddling, Tattoos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-25
Updated: 2018-02-25
Packaged: 2019-03-23 16:36:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13791735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hotmesslewis/pseuds/hotmesslewis
Summary: Billy and Meri learn a couple of new things about each other.





	tell tale signs

**Author's Note:**

> You know you kind of remind me of scars on my arms that I hid as best I could,  
> That I covered with ink, but in the right kind of light they still bleed through,  
> Showing that there are some things I just can't change no matter what I do.
> 
> \- Frank Turner, "Tell Tale Signs"
> 
> So it's a super-sad song that really has the opposite to do with this story, but I keep thinking about these lines and how Meri should have some tattoos, too.

The minute that Meri Lewis’s last exam was finished, he headed for his boyfriend Billy Clark’s dorm room. He pounded on the door impatiently and met his handsome redheaded lover with a burning kiss. Half-packed boxes were shoved aside, tumbling to the floor and spilling their contents, as the two young men tore at each other’s clothes, scattering shirts and jeans and boxers in a trail to the bed.

An hour later, they held each other’s spent bodies and spoke perhaps their first coherent words of the day to each other.

“Hi.”

“Hi, Meri.”

“Mmm, hi, Billy.”

“So how does it feel to be done with your freshman year in college?”

“Good. Damn good. And how does it feel for you?”

“Well, what you just did to me feels a lot better. But it feels pretty good to be done, too.”

“Oh, you liked that?”

“God, did I— Meri, no, not now, I’m not— Please, _God_ —”

There was a brief moment of quiet panting broken by a deep groan.

“Okay, I’ll stop.”

“You _tease_.”

“You say that almost as if it were a problem.”

“It is.”

“Don’t lie. You love it.”

“ . . . maybe. But, then, I just love you.”

These casual confessions always came as a shock to Meriwether Lewis, like slipping into the cold current of a river, his eyes widening and his body going still in a moment of chill. But he relished in the delicious moment of astonishment in retrospect and pulled his body closer to the thawing heat of his boyfriend. “I love you, too.”

But, of course—Billy Clark, willing to take advantage of a moment of weakness, rolling Meri’s shoulders down into the mattress and holding them there as he straddled the lean body of his lover. Kissing him on the mouth before moving his lips down, along the jaw, to the neck, Billy ran his hands appreciatively down Meri’s chest. He felt Meri’s arms moving and instinct, perfect reaction, wrapped his hands around Meri’s wrists and forced them back to the bed.

“Like to play rough, do you?” Meri was grinning like a cat with a kill.

But it was the first time that Billy had noticed: three thin, white lines along the inside of Meri’s pale forearms.

Scars.

But not casual, organic scars, from a young lifetime spent falling out of trees or scraping against rocks, like some of the other mementos Billy had found on Meri’s body.

He pulled Meri’s forearm up to him and looked at the lines closer. Intentional cuts. Almost surgically precise. Billy traced the thickest of the lines, closest to Meri’s wrist, lightly with a finger and tried to keep the concern from his voice. “Meri . . .”

Meri, then, pulling his arm away and lying with a stream of words and eyes veiled by his ashen lashes: “Accident . . . clumsy . . . stupid kid . . . never did heal right . . .”

Billy, who knew better than to believe him, also knew better than to contradict him. The secret would be Meriwether’s until he chose to share it; Billy only hoped that someday Meri would love (or trust? Or both?) him enough to explain.

Though Billy thought he knew.

“What about you, though?” Failing in the defensive, Meri played his stronger game: offense. “I’m not the one with the tattoo—you are.”

“What tattoo?” Billy feigned innocence poorly.

“You liar.” But Meri was slipping out from between his legs and crawling behind him, grabbing the redhead’s shoulders and shoving them to the bed. “That tattoo” he said, rubbing his fingers across the mark at the top inside of Billy’s left shoulder blade.

It was of a compass—a beautiful, ornate silver compass of antique design, the needle listing slightly from true north, to the west, creating the appearance that the needle was almost in motion. It seemed to defy being merely a tattoo—in some way, it was almost more a piece of art.

Meri had never realized quite how beautiful it was, quite how detailed and skilled the work, until this moment.

“I’ll explain if you’ll let me up to breath,” came Billy’s muffled voice from the depths of the mattress.

“But I like you this way,” Meri responded, half-pouting, burying his face in the thick red hair on the back of his boyfriend’s head for a moment, breathing him in.

“Oh, I bet you do,” but Meri was letting him sit up then. So Billy’s fingers reached back, tracing the top of the compass with his fingers, almost as though he could see it. He told his story looking at the pillow and headboards, talking to them instead of the young man, barely more than a boy, behind him.

“I’ve told you a bit, I think, about how I spent a few years . . . lost. I couldn’t go off to school like I wanted to, because my folks needed my help still at home, with the contracting business and everything. I didn’t even know if any schools would take me, to be honest. So I was just kind of drifting for a while, partying, meeting people, drinking too much, one-night stands, the whole lot. I was jackass stupid, and I was trying to drown out what I really wanted with all of these things I thought I wanted.

“But they were never enough for me, and I knew it. And I wasn’t happy.

“And then I had a bit of a scare, a, a health scare that really kind of shook me up. A lot.”

“You mean . . . ?”

“Yeah.” Meri’s fingers, tenderly following the muscles in his back. “I mean, everything turned out all right—trust me. I wouldn’t think about . . . being with you, otherwise. But still. It really kind of shook me, and I guess in a way it helped shake me awake. And I realized for the first time just how massively stupid I was being. And that, you know, I’d never be, God, I don’t know, happy unless I tried going after what I really wanted. So I stopped it, the partying, the drinking, the sex. I cleaned my act up. I finally showed my parents that I was and I could be responsible, and I applied to Virginia Tech and a couple of other schools.

“And on the day that I got my acceptance letter from VT, I went out and got this started.”

“A compass.”

“Yeah. It just seemed right, somehow. I guess because, it felt like, probably for the first time in my life, I had some kind of direction, you know? I knew where I was going. And it felt good.”

“Well, I’m glad for it.” Meri’s fingers, light as a feather, tracing from the heart of the tattooed needle to its tip, then following the outside circle of the compass.

“Why?”

Meri leaned in, and pressed his lips softly to the small silver circle. He moved his head up, to his boyfriend’s shoulder, and wrapped his arms tightly around Billy’s chest.

“Because. It’s really stupid, I know. But, in a way, it feels like it led you to me.”


End file.
